Christmas is coming

One thing I'm not thankful for... whatever instinct dogs have that causes them to roll in things that stink. Teri and I took Koskie for a walk on Thanksgiving (despite a crazy cold wind), and right before we made it safely home, Koskie found a yellowish putrid substance to happily thrash his body around on. Hopefully giving our dog a bath isn't a new Willard family Thanksgiving tradition.

Two other funny stories from the last week:
Thanksgiving night Teri had finished giving Zach her special super-long fun bath, and we could hear them happily playing up in Zach's room. Since it was a decent amount of time past his bedtime, I decided to play the bad guy and go up and hurry bedtime along. When I walked in and asked Zach if he was ready for night-night, he responded with "mama, go downstairs," and he actually waved me away! He clearly has figured out who is more likely to give him his way, and it isn't mean 'ol mom.

I know I won't be able to do the other story justice; I think a video camera would be required for that. But try to picture it... Bubba Gump includes jello with their kids' meals - something.Zach had never had before. He made quite the mess as he caused it to wiggle and jiggle, and he was giggling as hard as his stained-blue lips would allow. :)

Today was Christmas-decorating day. We put the tree up and some of the decorations around the house while Zach was napping, so when he got up he was pretty amazed at all the santas around the house. He kept saying - Daddy, look at that Santa! We tried to get him to participate in the tree-decorating, but I think that lasted for about three ornaments. We didn't put up a tree last year, since we weren't home much and were concerned about what a new walker would do with a lighted tree. This year will be interesting. So far he's pulled his dinosaur ornament (a gift to him from the Nowaks last year) off the tree about four times...

Too much

As I sit here recovering from eating too much (and we haven't even had dessert yet!), I have come to the conclusion that I have too much to be thankful for. I'll start with what I am the most thankful for:
Our little family - everybody healthy and happy.

I'm also thankful that I have in-laws whose company I actually enjoy. I'm very aware many people can't say that! We've had a great week, centered around eating (not counting today's dinner, which Teri and I cooked together, I've cooked exactly one meal since Saturday) and Zach. Oh, and shopping. :) We will all be sad to say good-bye tomorrow.

I'm also thankful for my own parents, who are hopefully enjoying the holiday in sunny Florida. We miss you!

I could go on and on, as we have a lot of family and friends to be thankful for. But I'll keep it short and hope you know how much we love and appreciate all of you. I also hope this holiday finds all of you surrounded by loved ones and good cheer!

The first thanksgiving in our new house!

May the force be with you

I don't know why, but that picture makes me think of Star Wars. Odd, I know, since it has Disney characters on it.

The sweatshirt is courtesy of "Grandma Cookie", as she is now known. Before Scott's parents got here, Zach was pretty confused - he seemed to think he had three grandmas, and they were all called Grandma K (the third grandma is my friend Cindy's mom, who occasionally baby-sits for us, and treats Zach as if he was her grandson). Alan jokingly suggested Grandma Cookie, since Cookie was Teri's nickname growing up - and Zach seized on that immediately. So the confusion has been eliminated!

We are definitely going to have a sad little boy when Scott's parents leave. He woke up in the middle of his nap today asking "grandma go?", which is his version of "where did grandma go?" The pictures below show how raptly Zach was listening as Grandma was telling him very entertaining and different versions of the 3 Little Pigs and the 3 Bears...

I forgot to mention some of our weekend excitement in my last post;He' we thought we were going to have our first trip to urgent care for a sprain/break of some sort. Zach fell sort of funny while chasing his football on Saturday, and cried quite a bit afterwards, which is very unusual for him (he's a tough kid.) He kept pointing to his right foot and saying "this one hurts." That night he could put his weight on it, but he didn't want to walk. And when he did walk - what a pathetic sight. I couldn't stand it! Since urgent care was already closed, we decided to see how it was Sunday and make a decision then. Fortunately, it just kept getting better and better, and by Sunday afternoon he was running and jumping on it. Whew. I suspect we'll be in the emergency room and/or urgent care many times for all sorts of bumps and bruises as this boy gets older, but I'm glad we were able to postpone our first trip!

Upside-right

That's my new favorite word: upside-right. Zach was looking at a book with a monkey hanging upside-down in a tree. He pointed out that the monkey was upside-down, and then turned the book the other way and said "upside-right!" Makes sense to me.

The other goofy thing he's been saying lately is a quote from his book The Potty Book for Boys, a gift from our big-boy friend Aiden (who was generous enough to give it to Zach when he no longer needed it). Several times over the last few days we've heard him say "uh-oh had accident, pants are very wet." Sometimes he even goes on to the next line, where the parents aren't upset about the wet pants, you know the potty-training drill. Anyway, a few times when he's said it, we've actually had a leaky-diaper situation, so I guess it's Zach's unique way of telling us he's wet and uncomfortable. Needless to say, when he said it this morning while sitting on my lap - I jumped up right away! But it was a false alarm... a wet diaper, but no leaks. Whew.

G&G Willard are here for Thanksgiving week. We've had lots of adventures - I'll fill you in more when I've got some pictures to post too. But needless to say - Zach is LOVING all the extra attention.

Zach eat it?

Zach and I tried a new adventure this afternoon - baking cookies. As anyone who knows me knows, baking is not exactly my forte. But I thought we'd give it a shot. And I discovered Zach was definitely excited about the concept, but not really into the execution. I spent the entire time trying to keep him from eating the batter in its various stages - including a concoction of eggs, chocolate chips,and vanilla. Yum! Every time we dumped in a new ingredient and I told him to mix, he'd say "Zach eat it?"

But as you can see - he definitely enjoyed the result!

I also thought I'd blog about two of Zach's favorite things these days - Elmo and Koskie. Elmo isn't new - he's been oddly fixated on that red muppet for what seems like forever. But he recently discovered the puppet that G&G Klicka gave him - including the secret button that makes Elmo talk. He loves it!

He also has discovered he loves our poor dog. The picture below captures pretty well what a great dog we have - check out the "I'm putting up with it but please get this little boy off me" look on Koskie's face as Zach "hugs" him. He has been a tremendously patient dog, putting up with Zach's new fascination with "diving" on him (it's not as bad as it sounds, but it does result in Zach basically laying on poor Koskie). This dog deserves a lot more walks than he's been getting lately!

Morning greetings

Zach greets us in the morning one of two ways: if he hasn't gotten enough sleep - with screaming and crying; if he slept in - with some sort of commentary. Usually that commentary is something like "mama coming?" or "Zach go downstairs." I just had to blog about this morning, when he slept until 7:15. I could hear him chattering, so I went up to get him and was greeted with: "Zach tooting." Good morning to you!

Too busy to eat

Lately I've noticed Zach hasn't been particularly interested in eating. He's always been like that in the morning, he's up for hours before he wants to eat (he does NOT get that from me, I wake up starving!). But lately he hasn't wanted to eat lunch or dinner either. He's happy to eat once we get him in the chair, but it's getting him in his chair that's the issue. I was wondering if he was just too busy playing to eat, which is a phenomenon I'd heard about but assumed happened at a later age (3??). The great thing about having a kid that talks is that you no longer have to guess... when I asked him if he wanted to eat lunch the other day, his simple response was - "no, mama, PLAY!" That answers that question!

And speaking of lunch, Zach just experienced his first juicy lucy at Matt's Bar in Minneapolis. Well, he mostly ate french fries, but it's the experience that counts. For those of you that have been there, picture three women, three 21-month olds, and a baby crammed into one booth. We were right by the front door, so every time someone walked in they'd do a double-take - are we in the right place?!?!? Hilarious. But we made it through lunch without any disasters, just a few sippy cups thrown and one sleeve dunked in ketchup (and it wasn't even Zach's)! Not bad.

To have and to hold

We agreed a while ago that we would try to make weddings "date nights" whenever possible, and we were able to manage that again this weekend, thanks to my friend Cindy's parents. Thank you again Paul and Lynn!!

My friend Pam (we met working at Andersen, and have been getting together as part of "GNO" - girls night out - for years) married Sean on Saturday, so first we headed down to Lakeville for the ceremony. Zach came along for this part, although he didn't last long in the church - as soon as the first song ended, he clapped and hollered "hooray - you did it!" Nice recognition for the pianist, but in the reverent hush of the church... not quite appropriate. So Scott headed out to let him run around in the vestibule, and discovered the best-stocked nursery we'd ever seen. Needless to say, Zach had a great time, playing with all those toys and our friends' daughter Marin. After the wedding, we took Zach up to Paul and Lynn's, who were kind enough to watch Zach overnight. Then off to the party...

Smiling Marin; the happy couple

GNO girls; not sure what Knitter and Jenny are doing... but it looks fun!

Cutting a rug (what does that mean, anyway???)

Great dancing, huh?; our version of the Rockettes

We crashed at a hotel downtown, to avoid driving all the way back out to Woodbury and then back again to get Zach. It was good to sleep in a little - we needed it! When we picked Zach up, he barely looked up from playing to greet us. I guess he didn't miss us much - we should go out more often!

Note to self

It is not a good idea to give couscous to a toddler who isn't proficient with a spoon.

Nice try buddy

Ok, one more story: Zach and Scott, like all men, have always battled over ownership of our remote controls. The rule is that remotes are Daddy's, so Zach doesn't get to play with them, but of course, all those buttons are way too tempting. As a result, Zach makes regular attempts at grabbing them, and if Scott catches him, he often says "nice try buddy." So yesterday, as Scott was figuring out where to put his high-def antenna (we now have Scott's dream tv hanging over the fireplace), Zach managed to get his hands on a remote. When Scott turned around, Zach was racing towards him, saying "nice try buddy!"

In other news, on Friday I had the opportunity to see what life would be like if we had a three month old baby, when I baby-sat my college friend Jenny's daughter Katelyn. And not surprisingly, I learned that both Zach and I are glad he doesn't have a sibling already! I have to cut Zach some slack... he has a pretty unpleasant cold, and we were not on our home territory, so he was constantly hearing "don't touch that, put that back." But he is definitely used to being the center of attention; almost every time I picked up Katelyn he'd say "mama down!", or "Katelyn chair!", while pointing at her bouncy chair. Or, my favorite - "mama snuggle you?" I enjoyed the one-on-one time with Katelyn while Zach was napping, but spending the rest of the day with the two of them gave me even more appreciation for people who have young kids close in age (you go Rebecca)!

Umm... maybe

This morning, as I was making Zach's breakfast, he walked into the kitchen with his sunglasses strapped across his head at a funny angle and said "mama - pirate!" It was one of those moments that made me wish I had a video camera constantly running, to catch all the funny things that this boy does and says. Of course, there'd have to be a lot of editing, deleting things like tantrums and 6 am wakenings, but at least then I wouldn't forget all the fun moments.

So instead I grabbed a post-it note (notice the product placement) and jotted down some of the things Zach has been saying recently, and I'll try to capture them here.

As I've mentioned before, you do learn alot about your own speech patterns when they're echoed back at you. We've been a big chagrined to realize how much we must say "um". One culprit is the game "I Spy", since every time Zach says he spies something pink (which he always does, even if there's nothing pink in the vicinity), we say "umm... is it xxx?" But it is odd to hear a toddler say um. He's even been known to say "umm... thinking", while tapping his temple.

The one I can't figure out is "maybe". I don't think we say it very often, but yet he says it at random times. For example, this morning he wanted me to go downstairs with him, so he said "mama, downstairs. maybe?" In a way, the right context, but so weird to hear!

My other favorite recent story is from last night; we both curled so it was Adam's turn to watch the kids - Zach and Sylvia, Adam and Jamie's daughter (which Zach pronounces "Syl-wah-wah" - hee hee). We got back to their house around 11, and the dog barking woke Zach up, so he was crying by the time I got to him. He stopped when he saw me, and then looked past me and saw Adam and said "Hey-yo Adam" (he still can't say his Ls well). It was such a Zach moment, to wake up crying and then happily greet a friend.

The pics above are from our adventures this morning; he was trying to fill dad's shoes! At least he picked the good ones - Scott's UW crocs. :) And fun with the aforementioned "cool guy shades", including dressing up his kitty.

I also realized I never posted any pictures of Zach in his Halloween costume - so here are a couple, including one with just a few girls at our neighborhood halloween party.

Our Halloween in review

We are having the most amazing weather, for September or October, let alone November. We're trying to get outside as much as we can, while we can. Koskie and I took a long walk Sunday afternoon, and I found myself wishing I had shorts on! I love it! Of course, then by 5 pm it was totally dark... I don't love that. Ugh. Winter here we come.

I had planned to upload all sorts of our Halloween pictures (using Scott's computer), to do sort of a pictoral Halloween in review. But then his computer lost our wireless connection and wouldn't connect again, so I decided to take that as a sign and give up.

So above is the one picture I got to upload - Zach and Kasey, our friends Matt and Jenny's then 8-month old, at the pumpkin patch. Cute, aren't they? Zach loves Kasey; all babies are Kasey to him. :)